Day 2: My grace is enough

2 Corinthians 12:7b-10 (NIV)

Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

“There has been endless speculation about what this was. A recurrent disease is the most likely guess, but we have no idea what sort… But the point is not just that it happened, and niggled away at him so that he couldn’t simply enjoy his wonderful spiritual experiences for their own sake. The point is that he prayed hard and long for God to take it away, and God said ‘No’… Instead, it is one of the most comforting, reassuring, healing and steadying ‘words of the Lord’ ever recorded: ‘My grace is enough for you; my power comes to perfection in weakness.’… God’s power and human power are not only not the same thing; often the second has to be knocked out of the way altogether for the first to shine through as God desires and intends.” Tom Wright, Paul for Everyone – 2 Corinthians

When faced with spiritual obstacles, hindrances, and annoyances that are not removed despite much prayer, may we experience that God is with us, for us, and His grace is enough. It is God’s grace when our human power is knocked out of the way for His power to shine through our lives.

Lord, in those moments of need, may we hear the comforting, reassuring, healing, and steadying word, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” May we endure not by our strength, but by your power that is at work within us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.